(no subject)

[oyceter]

Doing all this coding at work makes me want to revamp my homepage. But then, if I go about revamping my homepage, I figure I might as well start sticking up all the LJ book ramblings for the heck of it (also because I'm insanely anal and like to do stuff like that, and the LJ Memories function really sucks for organization). But then, I would want to sort everything by author and title and genre, which would make handcoding all those pages very, very insane. So then I would want some sort of database (the boy says SQL) so I could just input all the information to a database and call it back up when one clicked on the "By Title" link or something. That way, I could just input a review in the database, and the script would do the rest.

Except I have absolutely no idea how to do that. So I would have to go learn SQL. I wonder how hard it is? And I should just try to pick up DHTML and CSS while I'm at it, because embarrassingly, my current knowledge of HTML is still HTML 3.0 or something.

Then I would want to get a domain name for the boy's server.

Plus, if I were organizing all my reviews like that, I would want to stick on my Excel spreadsheet of books I've read this year and when I started and finished (I told you I was anal). And while I'm at it, I should just go and catalogue all the books I own right now and where and when I acquired them, if they're HC or PB, publication and edition dates, probably ISBN numbers just for the heck of it, maybe even the condition, and then somehow link that to my current spreadsheet.

Which is a lot of work. Which is why my website has been languishing for the past year or so.

I like Excel. It make giant lists and organizes them and filters them, which makes my little librarian heart very, very happy.

Comments

[thinkum]

And while I'm at it, I should just go and catalogue all the books I own right now and where and when I acquired them, if they're HC or PB, publication and edition dates, probably ISBN numbers just for the heck of it, maybe even the condition

"One of us! One of us!"

Welcome to the fold: my entire home library is catalogued in FileMaker (because I've been doing this since forever and that's the database program I had when I started, and yes, I also know I need to upgrade and convert that data into a SQL database, but good lord, who has the time these days?). ::grin::

[oyceter]

Ooo, we used FileMaker at the bookstore (all Macs there). But yeah, someday I shall conquer SQL and have an insanely linked and organized book website or something. Maybe I can even write it off as being skill development at work ;).

[chungag.livejournal.com]

SQL is definitely the way to go. It's not too hard to learn. What could be cool is learning both SQL and PHP. That way, you can make a scripted, dynamic web site that does the stuff you described above. If your server has Linux installed, it should already have MySQL and PHP support...

[oyceter]

Oooh, yeah, I need to learn PHP sometime too. Can you make dynamic sites with JSP as well? I think that's what Altera uses...

[oyceter]

Oh, gotcha. I find it rather ironic that I somehow ended up in Web Development and know nothing aobut this stuff.

[chungag.livejournal.com]

Yup, you should be able to do it with JSP too. JSP is just Sun's implementation for dynamic sites. There's an open source package called Tomcat that will work with Apache that you can download. ( http://java.sun.com/products/jsp/download/index.html )

But, PHP and ASP are the most commonly used languages...